284 Geological Notes on Zillah Shahabad, or Arrah. [March, 



usually six or seven feet below the surface. The value of a bullock 

 load at the spot costs about three anas. 



Laterite. — Large quantities of this curious mineral are seen scattered 

 about on all parts of the table-land, but nowhere did I find it forming 

 strata or beds. 



4-lum ore — Martial pyrites — Sulphate of Iron — Potstone. 



Beds of the above mentioned minerals, occur associated together in 

 five different spots in the hills, viz. two mines in the Koriyari-k'hoh, 

 under the Fortress of Rhotas, one at Telkup four miles north of Rho- 

 tas, one in the valley of the Doorgoutee river, and one in the Soogea- 

 k'hoh ; these two last mines, I believe are totally unknown to Europeans, 

 and would be well worth exploring. A description of one mine will 

 suffice for the whole, as neither in quantity, quality or relative situations, 

 or in arrangement of strata do they differ in any one respect. At the 

 foot of the sandstone precipices, from eight hundred to a thousand feet 

 in height, these mines appear as dark burnt masses of horizontally strati- 

 fied rocks, of several hundred feet in length and from fifty to two hun- 

 dred feet in vertical thickness. The arrangement of strata is as follows : 

 sandstone a thousand feet, indurated potstone thirty feet, dark schistose 

 rock or ore of alum ten or twelve feet ; what may be under this, remains 

 to be discovered. The ore when exposed to the air becomes covered 

 with a yellow spongy efflorescence, which has a small trace of sulphur 

 in its composition ; associated with this ore is another, mostly in small 

 irregular masses, similar to the odds and ends of stone lying about a 

 stone cutter's yard; it is a black, heavy martial pyrites or sulphuret of 

 iron ; the saline crystals on this ore, some a quarter of an inch in length, 

 are of a beautiful pale blue color, deliquesce upon the slightest exposure 

 to moisture, and when shut up in a box or bottle, the crystals dissolve, 

 and re-crystallize into soft and light masses resembling snow, which 

 under a lens display a most elegant assemblage of delicate and perfectly 

 formed white crystals. These crystals dissolved in a decoction of gall- 

 nuts or black tea make an excellent clear writing ink. 



These mines are not worked to any extent ; only a few maunds of 

 sulphate of iron, under the native name of Kussis, being made during 

 the year and exported to Patna and Dinapore, where it is used as a dye 

 for Calico, and in the manufacture of leather. 



